Sviatoslav Shevchuk first visited Vancouver 15 years ago as a fresh young priest on an adventure, driving here with friends from San Francisco.

This week he makes a return visit as His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, revered patriarch of the world’s four million Ukrainian Catholics.

“I remember admiring the fireworks,” the patriarch said of an evening he spent on English Bay in the summer of 1997.

On Saturday, he is to lead a morning service and reception at Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic parish in Vancouver.

Patriarch Shevchuk, 42, is back to Vancouver as the youngest “Catholic” bishop in the world, says his Canadian colleague, Ken Nowakowski, the Ukrainian-Catholic bishop for B.C. and Yukon.

Even though the Ukrainian Catholic Church follows Eastern Orthodox rituals and has an arms-length relationship with the Vatican, Shevchuk’s election as Ukrainian patriarch, or main archbishop, was confirmed last year by Pope Benedict XVI.

Canada has the world’s third-largest Ukrainian population after Ukraine and Russia. During an immigration wave beginning in the 1890s, most of the country’s 175,000 Ukrainian-Canadians settled on the Prairies, with a minority ending up in B.C.

The patriarch, whose name is the object of prayer during church rituals, laughingly said one of the reasons he is visiting Metro Vancouver is to show local Ukrainian Catholics he is “not a virtual person, but a real one.”

Members of the Ukrainian-Catholic Church in B.C. “have to feel the big church is with them. They have profound roots not only in Canadian soil, but in the whole church worldwide. It is very important to remember our unity.”

An official reason for the patriarch’s visit is to mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival on Canadian soil of the country’s first Ukrainian Catholic Bishop, Nykyta Budka. A fierce advocate of independence from the Vatican, Budka spent 15 years in Canada before returning to Ukraine in 1927. He died of starvation in a gulag after Soviet forces imprisoned nearly all Ukrainian Catholic bishops following the Second World War.

“He is a blessed martyr,” said Patriarch Shevchuk, who is leading a campaign to find Budka’s bones, which were scattered on a desert in a remote part of the former Soviet Union. Shevchuk would like to see them become holy relics.

Even though the Eastern Orthodox church remains by far the largest Christian faith in Ukraine, Nowakowski said most Ukrainian immigrants to Canada came from the Catholic region of the country of 45 million people.

Ukrainian Catholics do not follow the so-called Latin rite, but tend to blend Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Their church services generally adhere to what is called the Byzantine rite.

Because of their historical outsider status, Ukrainian Catholics were systematically persecuted in the Soviet era.

But Shevchuk, a one-time ethics professor, has warned all people against over-focusing on the wrongs of the past. He has called such a focus “moral escapism” – which he describes as excessive indignation based on past evils.

“It does not always translate into ethical behaviour today,” he said in an interview.

During his weekend visit to Metro Vancouver and Okanagan congregations, the patriarch is being guided by his longtime friend Nowakowski, whose formal title is Bishop of the Eparchy of New Westminster.

The patriarch, who speaks several languages, credited Nowakowski with attracting more British Columbians to Ukrainian Catholic services in his five years in office.

Even though many of the province’s 13 Ukrainian-Catholic parishes have small memberships, the patriarch said many have been growing as a result of ethnically mixed marriages and the church’s openness to newcomers.

Unlike many Ukrainian-Catholic parishes in Canada and the world, Nowakowski, 54, said most B.C. congregations try to offer services in both Ukrainian and English.

“We are committed to evangelization to all, not just to members of one ethnic group,” he said.

For the patriarch’s visit, a full house of about 500 is expected at Saturday’s 10 a.m. service in the visually striking domed sanctuary of Bless Virgin Mary Church, at 14th and Ash.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Share

Ukrainian Catholic patriarch to lead service in Vancouver

Video

Life Videos

Best of Postmedia

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Ignore the diversions in the United States: athletes kneeling or standing during the national anthem; Republicans flailing and failing again on health care; a kick-boxing creationist possibly becoming senator from Alabama. Calamity looms elsewhere. We are hurtling toward war with North Korea. It may be as early as next month. […]

It wasn’t in the middle of a farmer’s muddy field or deep in the boreal forest where the Canadian oilsands truly struck pay dirt. It was inside Fort McMurray’s recreation centre. More than 1,400 oilpatch workers, corporate executives, provincial leaders and the country’s prime minister assembled 21 years ago in northern Alberta to grasp a […]

Google’s powerful search engine is defeating some court-ordered publication bans in Canada and undermining efforts to protect young offenders and victims. Computer experts believe it’s an unintended, “mind-boggling” consequence of Google search algorithms. In six high-profile cases documented by the Citizen, searching the name of a young offender or victim online pointed to media coverage […]

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.